The whole social drama of a life in a text: Juliane Wersing “a day when Conny Kramer died” (1972).
Photo: Image/Frinke
Mr. Kampmann, what is hit?
I tried to find a very personal hit definition in the book. I have not tried to say what hit in general, but what he is personally for me. First and foremost, I understand this a musical phenomenon in German -speaking countries that took around 1984 …
… the year when the so -called new German wave came to an end …
Correct. Everything that came afterwards has nothing to do with my hit.
To what extent?
Schlager before 1984 had a completely different function than after 1984. Until then, the hit was often a kind of social seismograph. From the 1920s and their Paul Linke operettas until the 1970s. This becomes very clear in the post -war striker of the Federal Republic, which has anticipated numerous social issues in many ways.
In their book, they argue that, contrary to the popular view, the hit of this time was not predominantly conservative, but often progressive and subversive.
Exactly. Of course, on the one hand, a somewhat kitsched, perfect world was sung. But if you listen a little more precisely, you can tell that in many people popular at the time it was about political issues: be it the emancipation of women, sexual liberation, integration of guest workers, consumer criticism or gentrification. I found that amazing.
Interview
imago/BRIGANI-ART
Wolf KampmannBorn in Zwickau in 1962, is a freelancer as a music journalist. In Berlin he also teaches jazz history, pop history and cultural journalism. He is the author of numerous books on rock, pop and film history and has published two novels. In 2015 he received the award for German jazz journalism.
Do you have an example of this?
The song “The sweetest fruits (only the big animals)” by Peter Alexander, for example, is directed against predator capitalism. Or the album “In deep grief” by Juliane Werding, which is an incredibly strong statement of counterculture. There are many such examples.
And then all of this just stopped in 1984?
At least largely. After that, the hit largely merged with heartache and party music. When I look at Helene Fischer today – for me it is an Android. A perfected, flawless hit machine, the difference to an eel -glatted band like Rammstein is really only gradually. This distinguishes them fundamentally from previous pop stars, who often had some flaws, often even something strange. Another reason why I regard the year 1984 as a sectional point for the hit: At that time, Dieter Thomas Heck retired as a long face of the show from the ZDF hit parade.
And Heck is said to have been the face of the progressive hit? He was a confessing conservative!
No, he was a SPD voter, at least for a long time of his life. He later made election campaign for the CDU and was a close friend of Rainer Barzel (former Chancellor candidate of the Union; editor’s editor), but at the time of Willy Brandts he was close to social democracy.
In the book, they also lead the multiculturalism of the West German hit with stars such as Roberto Blanco or Costa Cordalis as an expression of his tolerance and cosmopolitanism. From today’s perspective, however, one does not have to state that the images of the “friendly exotic” they convey were mostly superficial and kitsched – and ultimately nothing more than one of stereotypes characterized by stereotypes?
The hit was kitschy in any case – but that has always been the German culture. In the book, I lead some of the meal lines from Goethe, for example, which would probably have been too cheesy for the hit. And of course the hit served clichés in many ways. So what? Unlike other genres, which have almost completely white and male, the hit was very international from the start. At least half of all successful hit star came from abroad. And the central face of the German hit of the 1970s, Chris Roberts, was an stateless person. Even though their marketing was often clichédicen and kitsched, it was an important sign of the visibility of other life cultures in the middle of the German post -war society.
They described the hit at the beginning as some genuine German. Can you explain that more precisely?
Everything that was sung in German after 1945 was automatically considered a hit. This is related to the popularization of the American popular culture, such as the rock’n’roll. If you listen to a song like “I jump all chains” by Ricky Shayne today, together with the screaming electric guitar and a singer who literally explodes and like senses “No, no, no, no”, then you would say: This is German-language rock music. But back then it was a hit.
The hit polarizes today like hardly any other genre. To do this, you write in the book: “The consistent pop hatter needs the hit as well as the passionate hit fan”. Do you have an explanation for this?
Yes, it has a lot to do with the fact that you don’t listen carefully. But you also have to see exactly: what is understood by the term? Is it about Ballermann, DJ Ötzi, Helene Fischer or the hit of the 1960s? When I show my students a song like “Greek wine” by Udo Jürgens today – who mostly listen to electronic music – then suddenly say: This is not a hit, that’s just a great song. In general, I think: if we love something, we always need a kind of counterweight. If I like techno, I can’t like hits.
They themselves became known as a jazz journalist and, after initial love, spurned the hit in their childhood for a long time and only rediscovered late.
That’s correct. Maybe I’m also a hit lover and hater in one person.
Do you have a feeling why 15-year-old Wolf Kampmann initially averted from the hit?
That was hung with my social environment. I think this is a normal process as a teenager that you permanently discover new things and then temporarily have nothing to do with the things of before. I also watch something similar with my children. In this respect, as a teenager, when I discovered The Doors, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, I wanted nothing to do with Howard Carpendale.
They grew up in the GDR, but were musically socialized there with the ZDF hit parade moderated by Dieter Thomas Heck. There was also a flowering hit scene in the GDR, which, however, is significantly shorter in the book. Why?
The book is deliberately not a compendium of the German hit. My impression is that the West German hit had a completely different political and social relevance. If you wanted to make art with political relevance in the GDR, you could only do this in the slipstream of the SED. The lyrical effusions of hit lyrics such as Hartmut König or Kurt Demmler, who also wrote not only for hit stars, but also for rock bands such as Phewdys or Karat, have mostly bored. In addition, however, I actually went looking for literature about the GDR hit in the course of the research-but then found that there were hardly any.
You have dedicated your book to Peter Brötzmann, an icon of Free Jazz. Is that an ironic distance from the hit by the back door or a special form of dialectic?
Neither nor. It is exactly what it is: a dedication – but there is a small background story. Because a few days before Brötzmann’s death in 2023, I conducted a last interview with him. At the end of the conversation I took my courage together and said: Peter, be honest, in the heart you are a romantic.
And what did he answer?
His answer was: I am the last romantic at all. I tore myself together very much when he said that. But afterwards I cried. And when my editor later said it would need a dedication for the book, I didn’t have to think about a second.
Wolf Kampmann: Show me the place in the sun, Osburg Verlag, 320 pages, brosch., 24 €.
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